


Evangelion: Sword and Spirit

by RodentofUnusualSize



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Action/Adventure, Basically if NGE was an 80's adventure movie, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Romance, More lighthearted than canon, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29245794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RodentofUnusualSize/pseuds/RodentofUnusualSize
Summary: Shinji Ikari leaves one summer's day, after another year of silence from his father. Years later, he returns to Japan at the behest of the commander of NERV, a different young man than he left. The mission objective is the same as it has always been: Defeat the Angels, protect humanity. The results will not be.
Kudos: 1





	1. Ouverture

The heat, as per usual, continued to create its own waves in the air. It had been like this for the greater part of the past eleven years. The climate, having been irrevocably altered, brought a nigh-permanent blanket down upon the once-temperate land. Had anyone known that this would be the quotidian result of Second Impact, the U.N. may well have pushed stimulus packages into the air-conditioning industry.

The silence, as per usual, stretched on, unbroken by either of the two standing in the graveyard- one older, the other young. It had been like this for the greater part of the last seven years. A toy for Christmas, perhaps some money for each birthday, but not words. Never a spoken word. 

The grass of the graveyard stretched, along with its markers, for what seemed like kilometers. The emptiness of the landscape had become familiar to its two current inhabitants. After all, it had been quite a long while of returning to this very position every year, and the lack of any other stimulus made it quite easy to focus on the surroundings. After all, it was not as if the cross between the two was to speak any time in the near future.

Shinji Ikari, age eleven, found refuge in the worlds wrought by the written word, in the unspoken alphabet of cello strings and piano keys, in the relative, if stormy, comfort of his own mind. His sensei, as rigid a man as he was, certainly instilled in the boy a sense of appreciation for the great works of literature and music, along with the culture of the western world. However, through all these years, he held out hope for the more literal sort of words from his father, any words to indicate some amount of care. He stood, his tattered book tucked in the crook of his arm, dog-earred in several places. The faded lettering of the book not covered by his forearm read revealed not kanji script, but Latin letters. The boy turned to his right.

“F-father?” The squeaked words echoed off of the rows of masonry surrounding them, not unlike the songs of the few birds pecking around the lawn.

He may as well have been speaking to the gravestone. Gendo Ikari gave no response, no acknowledgement. Had he not known better, Shinji may have mistaken him for a deaf man. This time, all this time spent waiting for nothing, built up a strangling pressure within him. He forced himself to turn his gaze downwards, dejected and ashamed. His gaze fell upon his well-worn book. Shinji realized, in that moment, that there were no flowers for him to grow in Japan; nothing here was anything to which he wanted to give his love. This moment of total stillness was enough to finally force him to realize that he no longer felt the need to be near this creature pretending to be a father. If this man was anyone, Shinji realized, he was the drinker, wallowing in the stupor of grief if only to forget said wallowing. He cared not for the stars, but counted them nonetheless.  _ This is not a life _ , young Shinji realized,  _ and this is no home for me _ . At this moment, Shinji Ikari knew that he must leave and that he must find himself his own home. And so, Shinji tried again, more forcefully, with conviction unknown to him before this moment.

“Father, please, send me away.” Finally, a reaction rewarded the young boy’s courage. The slight quirk of Gendo’s eyebrow betrayed his surprise. The bearded man turned towards his progeny. Those deep blue eyes, so reminiscent of  _ her _ , pierced him, paralyzed him. In that moment, the man wanted nothing more than to be away from his son. His mask, after a moment, slipped back into place.

“Where?” The reply was as cold as anyone would expect, had they known the man for more than roughly fifteen seconds.

Shinji knew of only one place he’d want to go. Another glance towards the weathered novel preceded his statement, the small stars and cursive script on the cover spurring him on. It was time for him to leave his little planet.

“I’d like to go to Europe.”


	2. L'attaque de l'Ange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the by, this work updates first on SufficientVelocity. We're up to Chapter 10 over there: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/sword-and-spirit-nge.69553/

The streets of Tokyo-3 were packed full. This would be a somewhat normal happening, were it not for the fact that the only thing packing said streets was the incessant buzzing of cicadas. I’ll have to remember to add that to the list of ‘things I didn’t miss about Japan’, Shinji thought. The young man stood in the city he had not seen in half a decade. He stood at a payphone, listening to the automated droning of the operator describing the ‘state of special emergency’ that, somehow, precluded the use of a landline. His cell hadn’t worked, either. Information management seemed the most likely cause for this state of affairs, he concluded. Can’t have people blabbing about their safety to their families, after all. That would be almost decent. Letting out a brief sigh, Shinji looked again at the photo in his hand, of one Captain Misato Katsuragi. Just what kind of guy do they think I am? He thought, glancing at the marker indicating two, ahem, particular areas of interest in the photo. They aren’t particularly incorrect in their assumptions, but a bit forward, no?

He pulled off his denim jacket, figuring that he would have to wait a bit longer in this heat before his knight in skimpy armor came to whisk him away, and set it on his suitcase. He hadn’t packed anywhere near all of his belongings for the flight, seeing as his father had only told him to ‘come’. He wouldn’t have even done that much, except that it must have been important for him to have received any sort of communication from his father. His guitar and cello both sat in Tonton Éric’s flat, as did many of his clothes and his computer, the majority of his books and his records.

His boredom would, unfortunately, be a situation that was quickly remedied. The black, hulking, eldritch abomination of a kaiju rounded the hill, its footfalls echoed by miniature earthquakes. He looked up, his pupils dilating. “N-Not the welcome I expected, but I can’t say I’m surprised,” he muttered to himself, “Godzilla would be the only thing that would make Father demand my presence.” In his experience, sarcasm helped hide the fear, both from others, and from himself- a classic strategy in the Shinji Ikari Fieldbook for Running Away. Apparently, however, the monster had either finally caught wind of his snark or grew tired of hearing it, as its next bound brought it down just meters from Shinji. Its massive feet crushed a VTOL beneath it like a can of beer under an overzealous undergrad’s foot. The resulting explosion sent Shinji flying blindly backwards, but, in a burst of adrenaline, he managed to convert the fall into a less-than-professional roll and duck into cover in an alleyway. The next addition to the sensory overload was the screech of tires behind him. He turned to see a vintage Renault, shining in all its royal blue glory, drift into place next to him. 

“Hey there! Been waiting long?” asked the purple-haired woman who appeared in the space the passenger window would have been. She matched up pretty well to the photo.

“Only until the apocalypse, apparently!”

At that, the captain let out a giggle. “Well then, let’s not have you waiting much longer. Get in, let’s go!” Shinji was quick to comply, throwing his remaining bags into the car and following with his body shortly. The car reversed to escape the massive foot that seemed to chase them, and then Misato threw the coupe into drive and sped off, with, for once, well-warranted reckless abandon.

+++++++++++++

“What’s it doing over there, Captain Katsuragi?” asked Shinji, being himself bereft of tactical binoculars. His shaking, which had set in soon after the initial flow of adrenaline petered out, was finally beginning to subside, making him look more the sixteen-year-old that he was and less the recovering cocaine addict. They sat parked on a ridgeline that provided a good line of sight to what Shinji now knew was called an Angel.

“Please, call me Misato, Shinji-kun! It looks like the JSSDF forces are pulling out… They’re arming an N2 mine? Are they nuts? Get down!” Shinji managed to comply, heart in his throat, just before the world turned to white.

Upon recovering from being blinded, deafened, desensitized in general, and thrown 20 meters off of the road, the two managed to- with no small effort- right the poor, battered vehicle. After a few minutes and some legally questionable, ahem, ‘requisitioning’, the two were speeding off towards NERV HQ.

“Look, I said I was gonna get him there. He’s my responsibility, so I’ll get him there, okay?... Yes, quit worrying about it, his safety is my top priority. Just have the car train ready when we get there.” She hung up with a groan. She took a look over towards said ‘responsibility’. This kid is a bit different than what the reports said about him. He’s certainly not quite as timid, and the fashion sense actually exists. Can’t say I’m surprised that those Section 2 goons can’t do their jobs. 

“While I’m flattered, Miss Katsuragi, I’d appreciate you staying on the road please. Eyes forward!” Shinji called out with a chuckle. They really have the fate of the world in their hands, huh?

The door locks on the car lift engaged, and Misato handed Shinji a folder. “Here, you’ll want to read this. By the by, you have some I.D. papers, right?”

“Yep. Here you go.” A pause followed, as Shinji eyed over the folder’s contents. “So this is what my father’s been doing to save the world, huh? Don’t tell me we’re about to go see him now.”

“We are, or at least, I think so,” came Misato’s reply. “Hey, trust me, I understand the daddy issues.”

“Well, I feel like you chose those words specifically to make it more embarrassing. It may be daddy issues, but it’s not Daddy Issues, you know? I’m kind of over it at this point.” A lie, maybe, but he’d cross that 8-lane freeway when he got to it.

“Hey, I get it.” The moment was interrupted by a sudden flood of orange and pink hues into the cabin of the Alpine. 

“Woah, a bona fide geofront! It’s certainly beautiful…” he trailed off. “S-so you secret society people have been hiding this from us, uh, unwashed masses, huh?”

“Well, it is home to a secret organization, after all. Fate of humanity on our shoulders and all, right kid?”

“Touché.”

Following some fumbling around in the maze that was NERV’s layout, Misato finally managed to reign her pride in and page a Dr. Ritsuko Akagi. Upon finding her, Shinji was not surprised to see a white lab coat on her shoulders. He was, though, surprised by the noteworthy pairing of a swimsuit with the garment. Wisely, he decided that a bit of quiet wouldn’t hurt him.

“Where have you been, Captain Katsuragi? We’re short on both manpower and time.”

Misato let out a short giggle, letting out a soft, “sorry!” She was answered by nothing more than a sigh.

“This is the boy?”

“Yep. The Third Child, as reported by the Marduk Institute.” Marduk Institute? I thought it was my father that wanted me. Something’s up here. Shinji wasn’t about to let slip his mistrust though, instead stuttering out a quiet greeting to the blonde. Misato, however, wasn’t letting him out of the spotlight so soon. “Don’t let the shyness fool you, he certainly makes himself more endearing than his father!” 

The elevator ride was longer than he would’ve thought, given the technological superiority of NERV. He tried not to grow too nervous at the massive pieces of… is that anatomy? that hinted themselves through the purple liquid surrounding them. The following boat ride was, thankfully, short, but the darkness of the next room caused his heart rate to rise again. Why he expected the lights switching on to assuage his fears, he wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t truly unexpected for his pulse to skyrocket when they did.

Standing before him was a sight unlike any he had ever seen. The mech had the air of a suit of samurai armour from the 18th century, had it been discovered by vandals in the 1990s and spray-painted violet and green. It was imposing, to say the least, as evidenced by the slight wobble in Shinji’s knees, but it felt… familiar, somehow. It was as if it was something he had seen in a dream. He turned to his information packet.

“You won’t find it in there,” Akagi said with a hint of amusement, ”This is the ultimate man-made multipurpose decisive combat weapons system. The Artificial Human, Evangelion Unit-01. Constructed in secrecy, it is humanity’s last trump card.”

“This is my father’s work, isn’t it?” Shinji’s question was rhetorical, he knew that this was somehow connected to that summons. An answer came, however, in the form of a deep voice from high above him.

“Correct." Boomed a deep voice from high above the helm of the war machine. "It’s been quite a while, Shinji.” The bespectacled silhouette of Gendo Ikari made itself known to the group below. Shinji felt disdain roiling in his gut, but suspected that his father was about to lay a few of his cards on the table, so he played meek for the moment. “Launch the Eva.”

“But Unit-00 is still grounded!” Misato interjected, before Shinji could contemplate this turn of events fully. “Wait, you don’t mean to use Unit-01?”

“We have no other choice,” replied Ritsuko coldly.

“Wait just a second! Rei’s in no condition to pilot right now!” The captain shot back. Shinji suspected where this was going. He needed a plan, quickly. He knew that somehow, he would be needed to pilot. This gave him leverage. If he was the only person who could do it, he would regardless- that much had been instilled in him by Éric. 

+++++++++++++

“Tell me, Shinji. What makes you human, rather than a creature or a stone?”

“M-my genetics?” Replied the younger, caught off guard by the seeming change of subject. They had just finished reading Being and Nothingness, Shinji remembered. 

“A good answer, but not quite what I meant. What quality, or qualities make you human, in your estimation?” Éric was a professor at the nearby Sorbonne, and his wife Évora operated the restaurant on the lower floor of their building near the rive gauche. 

“Alors, euhhh… then perhaps rational thought?”

“Very true, Shinji. What, then, does the ability to think rationally give you?”

“The ability to choose freely? Free will?” Shinji asked, seeing the genuine smile on his guardian’s face broaden.

“Indeed. Freedom is the essence of humanity, in my opinion. Ergo, is not the greatest of wrongs that one can do in the world is to take choice away from your fellow man?” he had said, leaning on his armchair in the vestibule of their flat on the second floor. “Power is not its own permission. This is why ‘la mauvaise foi’ is so ‘mauvaise’.” He chuckled. “If you deny yourself freedom, Sartre argues, you deny your existence as a moral agent. Would you do the same to others?”

+++++++++++++

Shinji, in that moment, knew total, terrifying freedom. I could run away, again. As that thought passed through his mind, he saw himself hold the futures of all those scared people in the city, hopeless and helpless. He knew that he would do what he must to protect the others. His father, however, did not know this. He had what he hoped was a blank check. A strategic opening? He needed, first, to check his assumptions. “We don’t have any pilots!” Spat Misato.

“One just arrived.” Bingo. “Shinji Ikari.”

“Yes?”

"You will pilot Unit-01.”

“What are you saying?” Misato all but yelled. “It took Ayanami seven months just to synchronize with her Eva!” He just got here, he couldn’t possibly do it!”

“All I ask is that he sit in the cockpit, nothing more. Defeating this Angel is our number one priority right now. Therefore, anyone even remotely capable of synching has to try. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, Captain.”

“Fine.” The captain’s brow furrowed.

“Father,” the youngest of the meeting of minds interrupted, “why did you send for me, after all this time?” It was time for his gamble.

“We just told you why.”

“So you want me, with no training, to get into that thing and fight that, that- putain de bête outside?” Betrayal welled up in his chest, unbidden. His hopes, as irrational as they may have been, stung dying in his throat. “There’s no way I can do that! You let me leave because you had no use for me, didn’t you?”

“A need arose.”

Shinji, as much as he hoped to keep his cool, felt a gut punch and a burn in his eyes at the clinical tone in his words. “B-but, why me?” He needed this confirmation. Besides, it was Napoleon who said never to interrupt your opponent if he’s in the middle of making a blunder, was it not?

“Because nobody else but you can do it.”

“It isn’t possible for me, either! I’ve never even seen this thing before, and you want me to go fight in it? I can’t pilot that thing!”

“Stop wasting our time! Either get in, or get out.” It was time for the roll of the dice. He held all the information he needed for a hopefully-informed choice.

“I’m out.” The creature aboveground seemed to have an impeccable taste for dramatic timing, as with those words, the base began to rumble, the shockwave of an explosion passing through the structure.

“Fuyutsuki,” Gendo began, ”wake up Rei.”

“In her condition?”

“She’s not dead.”

Shinji watched as a gurney was wheeled out onto the platform, the clearly injured, ‘Ayanami, was it?’ laid on top of it. ‘Blackmail, huh? I hope I was right…‘ he thought to himself, ready for his house of cards to crumble.

Odd, is it not, how word choice can be a curse?

The ceiling at that moment, decided to buckle under the weight of the Angel’s assault. Ayanami tumbled out of the gurney, to be caught reflexively by Shinji. Rubble came flying down, to… be deflected?  
“The Eva’s torn itself free from its restraints!”

“What? The entry plug’s not inserted!”

The babbling of the nameless technicians continued, but Shinji could only hear Misato mutter, “Could it be trying to protect him? This could work…” ‘Protect me? I’m going to need intelligence, assuming I survive this.’ It was clear that Ayanami was in no position to fight. Making her pilot had to be a bluff, he decided.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let him hurt you,” Shinji whispered to the wincing bluenette in his arms. He turned back to face the man above him, shouting, “I’ll do it. I’ll be its pilot… conditionally.”

Gendo, for the second time in as many meetings, betrayed his surprise at his son. His eyes did not hide quite well enough behind those glasses of his. “Name the conditions.”

“A sizable salary, for one. No trust funds, just directly deposited to a bank account. Next, security clearance at the same level as that of Katsuragi at all times. Finally, I will not take a human life.”

“No deal.”

“Then send Ayanami.”

Gendo was, to the surprise of everyone in the room, visually taken aback. A pause. ‘I can’t let this girl fight. Please, just agree… ‘ The twitch of an eye showed even behind the glasses. “Very well. You’ll have what you asked for.”

Shinji fought to keep the relief from showing on his face. “Then, I’ll get in the robot.”


End file.
